Monday, January 11, 2010

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS: A Mottley Crew of Vibrant Characters

My own book research offers me scant opportunities for pleasure reading these days, but I knew that THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS was a novel that wouldn't wait for my schedule. My hunch was correct. It's a triple whammy in my wheelhouse: historical fiction, the 18th century, and the Theatre; and I can't remember the last time I could not bear to put a novel down.

Innocence is lost; retribution won. Worlds collide with noisy bursts of energy in the late Peter Mottley's novel, THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, the first in a trilogy loosely based on the series of paintings titled "A Harlot's Progress," painted by William Hogarth in 1731.

Hogarth's Moll Hackabout is transformed into "Yorkshire Molly" Huckerby, who arrives in London intending to meet her cousin, a magistrate, with the hope of marrying him. But when the York Wagon dumps her outside The Bell, what she is led to believe is a coaching inn for weary wayfarers, she is seduced by The Bell's bawd, Mrs. Wickham, and subsequently ravished by the evil Colonel Charnell. With her stolen maidenhead went her reputation. Thrust into the life of a destitute, demoralized and debauched harlot, Molly embarks on a series of unexpected adventures belied by Mottley's classic set-up of country lass thrust into a life of vice upon her first visit to the big city.

Mottley is a master at world building, with an uncanny ear for period dialogue. His pages teem with sensuality, from the odors of ordure and vomit to the perfumed periwigs of playgoers. Sweat mingles with saliva in the haze of candlelight. His London is a place of heavy velvets, cheap cottons, gossamer thin lace and linen, the topography of a heavily embroidered cuff.

His heroes and heroines are the disenfranchised -- those who society does not permit to speak up, for whom justice is denied, those who the "quality" gentry has either forgotten or despised (or both): harlots, blacks, children, Jews.

His villains are society's sacred cows -- the military, the clergy, and the judiciary. But in THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, we are shown the underbellies of the beasts; their dark side: corruption; vice; hypocrisy.

Peter Mottley was a playwright, actor, and director and employs his theatrical experiences and background to great advantage here. He doesn't miss the chance to incorporate specific play titles and glimpses at life backstage (including a running gag involving a pair of actors desperate to finish fornicating before their cue). In one scene the rutting leading man complains at having to play Macheath in John Gay's "The Beggars Opera" because he thinks it will ruin his reputation. It's another allusion of Mottley's, an inside joke in our theatre world: "Satire is what closes on Saturday night."

Other aficionados of classical theatre, particularly the plays of Shakespeare, Vanbrugh, and Gay, may see certain scenes coming a mile away; I'm thinking of one in particular. I'd correctly surmised what was about to happen, and yet Mottley sufficiently builds the tension, as well as our sympathy for the right characters, that you find yourself drawn in, fingers shielding your eyes as you peep through them at the scene you knew would take place, but dread watching.

Yes, there are a few implausible elements within the novel: for an early 18th century Yorkshire farm girl Molly is awfully well educated (she's familiar with the story of Leda and the Swan -- yet [as might be expected] has never heard of Tarquin and Lucrece). Colonel Charnell's wife was an heiress when she married him (for love), admitting that he had only been a captain at the time. Yet seventeenth- and eighteenth-century marriages were financial arrangements, and unless she'd managed to get pregnant out of wedlock, her father would never have allowed such a marriage to take place. Lavish gowns are stitched up in less than a day. In truth, the turnaround time at best might have been a few days, with the modiste's entire staff hard at work on the creations.

But these are quibbles. And most readers wouldn't even know that Mottley had cut a few corners. Better to focus on the quirks he gives his characters: a hunchbacked Jewish moneylender has more humanity than most people in London; a childlike harlot who routinely adopts the names of Shakespearean heroines, dreams of a stage career (astute readers would grasp the unexpressed irony here: actors were considered no better than harlots in that era!)

If only Mottley had lived to see THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS published. But his daughter, Jocelyn Pulley, to whom the novel is dedicated, has recorded a book trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSF5bsCCDJg with such tremendous expressiveness and gusto that you'll be panting for your copy to arrive in the mail!

8 comments:

You're welcome, Heather. It's an amazing story, compellingly told. It's dark in a lot of places, with touches of black humor. At one point a tavern keeper tells our heroine (who is pretending to be a widow), "All the widows I've known have had dead husbands."

Christine, it's a lightning quick read if, like me, you get so caught up in the story that you can't put it down. I haven't stopped thinking about it ... even recognizing retrospectively that there are some holes in the narrative ... setups that don't quite make sense because it leads to questions of inconsistency in a couple of the characters. There's a brutal street fight in one of the opening scenes in the book and you learn later that there are more layers of complex character interaction than initially meets the eye. But one of the characters involved in the fight is hardly your average victim. Quite the opposite, in fact, so it makes the choice of the person caught in the middle (and she's one of the characters we need to care about) an extremely questionable (and inconsitent) one, something the character as drawn by Mottley, would never do.

Odd inconsistencies aside, the fact that I've been thinking so much about the characters as human beings, bothered about the choices they made, even if they don't make sense and I wish Mottley had gone back in and addressed them (too late now), is proof that this is one novel worth diving into.

Another note: in her review of THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, Lizzy referred to the disturbing level of violence in the sex scenes. The book could not have been written any other way because 95% of those scenes are rapes or fetish scenes (involving reluctant -- or benumbed -- professional harlots). And if the "sex" scenes weren't appropriately violent, there's a danger that the reader might actually find them erotic instead, which would undermine everything Mottley wants us to feel as we read the novel.

Hogarth is one of my favorite illustrators so I have to read this book. He had a fascinating life too.

If it were not for the sex, violence and the syphillitic portrayals of characters....the series of illustrations would make a great picture book for kids. just kidding. But Hogarth could really do narrative illustrating better than anyone.

Lucy, we all have so much going on in our lives that as much as we love literature, and reading, sometimes real life such as we know it gets in the way.

I was asked by a publicist to review the new book (nf, I'm imagining) about the Coburgs --which would make sense for me to read, given the chapter on Victoria and Albert in NRM, but with my current writing deadlines, rehearsals, etc. etc., much as I am interested in the book, I just can't commit to reading (let alone reviewing) it on someone else's deadline while I've got two contracts to fulfill.

I'm Lizzy Bennet -- who's surprised?

Welcome to the literary salon of the Lady Novelist (who writes nonfiction as well)

Random musings from women's fiction and nonfiction author Leslie Carroll also known as "historical romance queen" [Publishers Weekly] Amanda Elyot. Actually, Amanda wrote historical fiction, but who am I to reject a compliment from PW!

ROYAL AFFAIRS gets a rave from the Library Journal

In this delightful addition to the countless other books written about the British Royal Family, Carroll (Choosing Sophie ) deftly constructs information chronologically by ruling dynasty, from the Angevins to the Windsors. Along the way, she shares with readers little-known facts-e.g., that the 20-year liaison between William IV and his actress companion was apparently a happy and contented one until he tossed her aside to become king-as well as facts more widely known, e.g., that Queen Victoria and John Brown were close friends but that no evidence of an affair has been discovered. As her previous experience writing historical fiction under the pseudonym Amanda Elyot attests, Carroll can ably research and distill facts and has a true talent for weaving fascinating narratives. Her entertaining writing style makes this one book you do not want to put down. Entertaining, impeccably researched, and extremely well written, it will appeal to all readers with an interest in British history as well as to those with a more specialized interest in the personal lives of the British royal family. Highly recommended.

New York Post chooses CHOOSING SOPHIE

Although not exactly “Sophie's Choice" serious, you gotta love an author who goes to Brooklyn Cyclones games as research for her baseball-themed book. Romance writer Carroll's hero is ex-burlesque star Venus deMarley, who finds the perfect fiancé, is informed her estranged father has died, and is reunited with the daughter she gave up for adoption 20 years earlier. As if that weren't enough jolts, Venus also inherits her father's minor league baseball team, the Bronx Cheers.

All for Love: The Scandalous Life and Times of Royal Mistress Mary Robinson Amanda Elyot. NAL, $14 paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-451-22297-8

Historical romance queen Elyot shines her light on Mary Darby Robinson (1758–1800), who, during her brief life, burned with a passionate intensity. Born to a successful British merchant who abandoned the family, Mary nonetheless enjoyed an education that nurtured her passion for prose, poetry and drama. Elyot convincingly evokes the ambivalence Mary feels at 15 as she struggles with her mother, who pleads that she give up her upcoming acting debut to marry Tom Robinson, the supposed heir of a rich uncle. After doing as she’s told, Mary suffers the first of many romantic disappointments, all the while finding refuge in her poetry and other writings. Tom’s philandering and financial irresponsibility finally return her to the stage, and there the auburn-haired beauty catches the eye of the Prince of Wales. Mary’s daring and anguished existence is truly the stuff of novels—her own writings, particularly her feminist essays, were acclaimed in her lifetime—and Elyot’s telling of her life, in Mary’s voice, honors her legacy. (Feb.)